Brad Stine Has Issues: A Fairy Tale of the Beginning of Everything

A Fairy Tale of the Beginning of Everything

Once upon a time, there was nothing. No earth. No sky. No universe. Not even molecules. Nothing.

Over time… wait, there was no time because it was nothing… Okay, but nothing apparently got lonely, or bored or antsy – which nothingness tends to do. And suddenly, out of the blue (not that blue existed because there was no light thus no color)… anyway, for sake of argument, nothing – for no reason whatsoever – blow up!

But immediately after blowing up, what once was nothing suddenly became a whole bunch of something. Nothing we humans would recognize, but something nonetheless.

Suddenly, for no good reason, there were molecules that instantly became the periodic table with interesting stuff like hydrogen and carbon. And, with that came heat and light and even defined space. For if something blew up, it had to blow up from somewhere and keep expanding towards somewhere else, thus creating borders… so to speak.

Anyway, after a while… though “while” didn’t exist since nothing intelligent could say it had been “a while” yet.

Anyways… some of the matter began slowing down and cooling. And some combined with other stuff and became balls of heated stuff that began to cool down in the form of a sphere, for some reason. Because of gravity – which somehow was invented because of the explosion… which happened for no reason.

But one of these orbs had enough interesting stuff to become water and soil and form an atmosphere that eventually would be destroyed by greenhouse gases… but, that’s a long time for now!

And anyway, the ozone should have anticipated that and made its layer more resilient!

Sorry.

This was the beginning of the earth… though, it wasn’t called “Earth” then. And it didn’t even know it was there.

What was interesting, from a human perspective (which, by the way, is the only perspective that utilizes the concept of interesting), was that some of the same accidental, for no good reason stuff made chemicals which took the form of water and soil. They also became, by accident, plants and organism that were autonomous and separate from the rest of the stuff, and was actually what we would call alive.

But, even though it was alive, it didn’t know it. And it didn’t care. For some reason, though, its aliveness was somehow better then non-aliveness – to the point that over time, as long as it was still around, it would accidentally mutate appendages and gills and eyes and all kinds of accidental stuff that accidentally allowed it to survive… even though it didn’t know it wanted to.

So, to make a long, long story short: because the stuff was still around and because it accidentally, without purpose, would for no reason develop stuff that kept it alive, but got even more bored; and so now and again would birth a kid that no longer looked like it, but instead was something completely different… of another species.

Some of these completely different things were monkey-looking-ape-thingamajiggers whose only quality that made it special was figuring out how to use tree branches to hit things with. It also noticed stuff like fire, which when touched, burned and hurt; but if you threw meat into it, it tasted good. And, it was somehow more civilized than simply eating raw meat… which it had done up until this. It, interestingly enough, never needed fire to cook with in the first place… but it decided to suddenly for no reason.

Over time these “alive-nicks” kept accidentally growing things on their bodies and getting a bigger brain… for no reason. And they began to officially think (whatever that means) and take charcoal to draw pictures and communicate with other meaningless things, which eventually led to cell phones and text messaging and destroying the environment.

All of this, by the way, had no meaning or purpose. It just happened. Until, over time, the stuff that came from nothing formed a brain, which began to look at the sky and wonder where it came from. Because, apparently nothingness that explodes becomes curious over time and wants to discover itself.

Star matter made of molecules reaches a point where it says, “Look! I’m star matter and exist for no apparent reason. And have no purpose but to discover that I have no meaning. And I choose to find meaning in that discovery. I will also only believe in my matter and stuff I can observe and experiment on. And anything I can’t hold, or observe, or repeat in an experiment isn’t real. And I don’t believe in it! (except… well, maybe love, or art, or courage, or justice, or joy, or curiosity, or mercy, or philanthropy, or goodness, or truth, or right and wrong, happiness, and purpose.”

Yes, meaninglessness believes in purpose.

“None of those things can I test, repeat, and hold in my hand. But, I am going to believe in it anyway, so I can fool myself into believing that meaninglessness and accidental appearing is true, and real, and worth knowing.”